Zap Mama — a musical entity centered around the gorgeous voice of Marie Daulne — walked regally onstage, just three women and three microphones (and three exercise balls). Looping their voices, they wove their vocal lines into a web of mysteriously cool sound. Echoing and repeating, these three voices contained multitudes.

Zap Mama’s new album, ReCreation, came out just last week. It’s the sixth album for Zap Mama, and the third in its current incarnation as a project for Marie Daulne and an array of collaborators. Watch the video below for the new single, “Hello to Mama” — filmed in Mali, and released in support of mothers around the world. (If you download the single from iTunes, a portion of the cost will be donated to CARE, an organization that fights against maternal mortality.)

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. (Recorded at TEDGlobal, July 2009, Oxford, UK. Duration: 18:49) Twitter […]

Nathan Myhrvold and team’s latest inventions — as brilliant as they are bold — remind us that the world needs wild creativity to tackle big problems like malaria. And just as that idea sinks in, he rolls out a live demo of a new, mosquito-zapping gizmo you have to see to believe. (Recorded at TED2010, […]